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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
All we know that today English has become an international language. Cristal 1997 stated that English is now spoken by over two billions people
with different assents and competency level. Furthermore, he had observed that today, the number of the native speakers of English are less when it is
compared with the English nonnative speaker. This happens because the use of the language has spread beyond the border of Britain itself.
Since English has important role in International relation, it is very important to master English well. It is not surprising if all countries in the
world use English as one of the subjects studied at school. The purpose is to make the young generation competent in English even though passive or
active English, whether to speak fluency or just to understand what people say or to write their opinion to express their idea.
Indonesia as a developing country tries to bring the next generation to master and have ability in English well. The government has put the English
as the compulsory subject. This means that English must be taught from elementary up to university. English is the first foreign language taught at
every school in Indonesia. The main purpose of teaching English as a foreign language in Junior high school is providing the competence of the students to
achieve communication competence of English skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. Haycraft 1978 said that there are various
skills in mastering of language; they are receptive skills and productive skills. The receptive skills consists of listening understanding the spoken language
and reading understanding the written language, while productive skills consists of speaking producece spoken language or by uttering it and
writing produce writing composition. To achieve this purpose, Indonesian
government sets its educational curriculum which is including the teaching English as foreign language
However, many Indonesian students find it difficult to learn English well. It is because Indonesian students of English in Indonesia, do not have
enough exposure to practice the language and enough source people to practice with.
As stated by Cohen and Dornyes in Fauziati, 2013:11 some factors that influences the students in mastering English language are duration and
intensity of the course, the characteristic and abilities of the teacher in sending materials to the students, as well as encouraging the students in
studying using the right methods of learning, the appropriateness of the teaching methodology, the quality of the textbook, the size composition of the
learner group, the amount of the natural target language practice opportunities and the characteristic of the language learners.
In short, the students can learn English well and they can get high quality of learning, and even they can master English well as long as they are
provided by good learning environment, reinforce environment, a good time of learning, a very effective method of teaching and learning, a clear material
and they have wise teacher who know and understand what they needed well. In addition, the students should provide their own good learning condition.
Besides, the wise teachers in bringing their students to be success, they should not only send the materials or transfer the information to the
students, but also have to teach the students how to learn well, how to think well, how to remember and to motivate themselves. In fact, teachers often ask
their students to study hard every day, but sometimes the students find it difficult to apply the teachers’ request.
In some cases, some teachers ask the students to learn but they rarely taught about how to learn English well. They ask their students to be able to
solve the problem, but they rarely taught about solving some English problems.
In facing this, the students of English as foreign language need strategy of learning. Because without learning strategies, the students will be
in trouble, and they will think that English is boring and difficult. As the result, the students will be lazy in studying the lesson, and as the
consequences, they will be fail in learning English. In contrast, learning English will get success if the students know how
to apply the language learning strategy appropriately. Language learning strategy is more identic with individual activities in which every student will
have different strategies in learning. Besides, the good and appropriate learning strategies should be recognized by teachers. They can introduce or
even they can teach them and they can help the students to use the strategies effectively. Thus, the language learners can be autonomous learners because
learning strategies are keys to greater autonomy in learning. In addition, by introducing and teaching the strategies, teachers can
also create situation in classroom in which learners can apply the correct learning strategies; or teachers can give assignment to their students at home.
By this assignment, the students can apply the good language learning strategies outside classroom. This makes the students success on language
learning. According to Oxford 1990
the words “strategy” comes from Greek word “strategia”, which has meaning of generalship or the get of war.
Strategy means the management of the troops, ships or aircraft in a war situation. Scarcella and Oxford 1992 in Oxford stated that learning strategies
as specific action, behaviors, steps or techniques –such as seeking out
conversation partners, or giving oneself encouragement to tackle a different language task used by students to enhance their own learning. Ellis in
Ghadessy 1998 defined strategy as an activity of mental or behavioral, related to some specific stage in the overall process of language acquisition or
language use. Chamot 2005 in Bima stated that strategies are the produces making easier to learn something, especially language learning.
Fauziati 2013: 23 stated that research on Language learning strategy has begun in 1960, since the developments in cognitive psychology gave
influence to studies on language learning strategies. According to Oxford 1990: 8 learning strategies are
“operations applied by students or learners to aid the acquisition, storage, retrieve and use
of information ”. Beside, Schumaker and Desler in Fauziati, 2013 stated
learning strategies as an individual approach, it is the way of organizing and using a particular set of skill in order to learn content or accomplish other task
more effectively and efficiently in learning process at school as well as in nonacademic setting. Riding 2002: 79 said that learning strategies are
formed as part of a response with the individual to meet the demands of environment. Learning strategies may thus been seen as cognitive tool which
for the individual are particularly helpful for successfully completing a specific task. This approach leads to the concept of the strategic learners.
Beside, Ellis in Kayaoglu 2013 stated the term “strategies” as follows: Strategies are general approaches as well as specific actions
or techniques employed to learn L2 Strategies are problem-oriented
In the main, strategies contribute indirectly to learning by providing learners with data about the L2 which they can
then process. However, some strategies may also contribute directly
Learners are aware of the strategies they use in their effort to learn foreign language
Strategies involve linguistic and non-linguistic behavior While some strategies are behavioral, others are mental. Thus
some strategies are directly observable, while others are not Strategy use varies considerably depending on the task the
learners is engaged in and individual learners preferences Wenden in Takac 2008 said that the term of language learning
strategy refer to language behaviors of learners engage in to learn and regulate the learning of second language, to what learners know about
strategies they apply strategic knowledge, and to what learners know about the aspect of second language learning.
In conclusion, learning strateg ies are someone’s approaches to
learning and using information. It is selected and applied by the students to help them understand and solve problems. It is one of some factors which
help to determine how and how well the students learn English as a foreign language. The students are seen as the active participants in teaching and
learning process, using various strategies in order to sort out the system of the learned language which the students must actively process linguistic
information, places a great responsibility on the learner. MTs Negeri Tanon is Islamic Junior High School located at Jalan
Waduk ketro, Tegalsari, Ketro Tanon, Sragen, Central Java. This is one of the biggest and most favorite Islamic Junior High School in Sragen. It always
competes with other school. It has 885 students for both male and female students. They are divided into three levels, namely the seventh, eighth, and
ninth grade students. The eighth grade students consist of 288 students. They are divided into nine classes that are VIII A until VIII I, or 32 students for
each class. The VIII H and VIII I are called as the kelas olimpiade olimpic
class. The Olympic classes are special classes because the students of this class are prepared for participating in some competitions out of school. The
students of these classes start their teaching and learning process at 07.00 a.m., and end at 1. 25 p. m. and they get regular material or lesson like regular
classes. In addition, the students get additional lesson, such as mathematics, science, robotic and English lesson from Monday to Thursday. They get them
after school or it is at 1. 45 p.m. until 03.00. p. m. The materials of the additional lesson are different with what they get in the morning. The
materials given are items for competition preparation. Hopefully, the students get best in knowledge and they are ready to participate in competition
whenever they get invitation. The students of Olympic class consist of the same gender. It means
that VIII H consists of 32 female students and VIII I consists of 32 male students.
Being Olympic class students is not easy. There are some requirements of it. Firstly, they have to pass some test; namely placement test,
IQ test, and achievement test. In addition, there is an interview with the students’ parents which aimed to get their permission if their children study at
the Olympic class and go home late at the additional lesson. Based on the pre-observation that had been conducted at MTs Negeri
Tanon, the writer found the differences score between male and female Olympic class students of the eighth grade. The female students usually get
everything better than the male students. The female students get better score of average. In addition, they are more active than the male students in
teaching and learning process. In fact, they get the same material, textbook, teaching and learning process, etc. From this phenomenon makes the writer
think that the different score between male and female students of MTs Negeri Tanon are caused by learning strategies used by them. The male of
Olympic class students use inappropriate strategies, as consequently, male students learn more passively, get worse mark, and even some of them fail in
the study. Based on the explanation above, the writer is interested in observing
learning strategies of English language learning used by the male and female of the eighth grade Olympic class students of MTs Negeri Tanon. The writer
wants to study the students of English class from their behavior in learning English as their strategies. The rese
arch title is “LEARNING STRATEGIES USED BY THE EIGHTH GRADE OLYMPIC CLASS STUDENTS OF MTs
NEGERI TANON IN 20162017 ACADEMIC YEAR”
B. Limitation of the Study
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